About a month ago, I skipped down to my car on a sunny Sunday morning to be greeted by a parking ticket. I was parked in service parking, but it was the weekend. I opened up the ticket, and it informed me that I had been parked in a reserved spot.
I was really confused. I was always told by upperclassmen, grad students and peers that you can park in any legal parking spot after five p.m. on the weekdays and anytime on the weekends. I live in Griffis Hall, and the service parking is right next to the girls’ wing. After I heard this rumor, I looked it up online, and the rumor was true; the MSU Parking Services’ website said that any legal spot was game after 5 p.m. and on the weekends, with the exception of reserved spots, such as handicap spots.
The handicap symbol is universal; from the time you are a small child, you can recognize it and understand what it symbolizes. However, how many of us have ever even seen “service parking” before stepping foot on a campus such as MSU’s?
I was later informed by Parking Services that the rule about service parking was online, just not in the place I looked. It’s listed under the terms and conditions that you check off when you purchase your parking permit. There are like a million (well, not quite) pages of those terms and conditions; most of us click the box, some of us skim over them.
Yes, service parking is labeled “Service Parking Only,” but the zones are labeled “North Zone Only,” “South Zone Only,” etc., and they are considered legal parking after 5 p.m. and on the weekends.
I didn’t even technically know what service parking was until I got my ticket. I had always thought that it was similar to “10 Minute Parking” zones.
I think it’s ridiculous that if you live in Zacharias Village, you have to park all the way in the back of that huge parking lot just in front of Griffis because you forgot your water bottle or chapstick and need to run up to your room to get it. Last year, I parked in service parking all the time on the weekends and never received so much as a warning.
Parking Services informed me that service parking is for emergency vehicles and official MSU vehicles.
Wow. That would be great. That is, if that’s what the spaces were actually used for. Yet, I see cars parked in service parking zones all over campus all the time, but especially on nights and weekends. This past Sunday  at 10:22 p.m., I saw three student cars in Building 3’s service parking and two in Griffis’ service parking. These sightings reaffirm my suspicions that other people have been told just as I have been told.
Not only that, but this is my second year living in Griffis, and I have yet to see an MSU vehicle parked in service parking. Instead, they park alongside the road with hazard lights on, on the sides of the entrance/exit to the Zacharias Village student parking lot (which creates blind spots for student drivers) or in the turning lane in the road in front of Griffis. It’s fine that they have special spaces, but maybe if they used them, more students would get the message that that’s what the spaces are there for.
Even some clarification on the labeling would be nice. Instead of being labeled “Service Parking Only,” why couldn’t we add, “Official Vehicles Only?” Would clarification really be that difficult? If that’s not possible, why couldn’t we clarify the rule on the Parking Services website about what is considered “reserved.”
I understand the rumor mill does not cycle out laws, but word of mouth does have some merit. This university is for the students; without the students, it would just be a lot of pretty buildings. So, I hate to break it to you, but it does matter what the “rumor mill” says. Because those rumors, especially those that you witness carried out sans penalty, eventually become somewhat common knowledge. It seems cruel of MSU to know that a large percentage of students are ignorant about a certain aspect of parking but then do nothing to educate the students.
Really, clarification is all I’m asking for; that would be the bees’ knees. There is no reason why spaces shouldn’t be unamibguously labeled so we can park without having to worry.
And while we’re at it, can we add some “10 Minute Parking” zones in front of the residence halls? Some of us forget our chapstick.
Wendy Morell is the opinion editor of The Reflector. She can be contacted at [email protected].